Ask HN: Do you have a system for learning and remembering important stuff?

7 pointsby ssijak6 lat temu5 comments

Lately I become really bothered on how much and how fast we forget things if that knowledge is not immediately needed for the current tasks.

And taking into account how many interests all of us have, and general information overload I am sometimes anxious because I can not learn enough about the things I love and even if I do, that knowledge is slipping away constantly if it is not used.

I am a software engineer and there are so many tools, topics, libraries, languages and other things to learn and master (and not forget). It is constant battle with the endless streams of new things, platforms, updates and such. But I also have strong interests in other fields (science, astronomy, physics and math in particular, startups, etc).

I read alot, 50-70+ books per year and countless blog posts and other materials, and as I said, I am becoming annoyed at how much we are bad at remembering long term. Usually I am satisfied with remembering 1-3 main points of a book with vague reasons/support for those points.

So I wanted to track and organise my personal knowledge and stumbled on Zettelkasten which seems like a reasonable system. (Obsidian app looks nice for it). But I somehow have a block on how to start with it when there is a blank slate (I kind of struggle with perfectionism and "blocked by planning" problem sometimes).

I've also started with making my Anki decks. Which seems to be working well and seems useful. I'm also thinking that some Anki cards would stream to Zettelkasten in a slightly longer form when I go through them enough times.

Which systems do you use and how do you battle this problem?

5 comments

tmaly6 lat temu

I really like writing down summaries of key items I extract from the book in a short form that is easy to review.

There are several articles I have seen on HN over the last few months that may be helpful

https://vasilishynkarenka.com/learning/

I prefer to use 3 sheets of paper over an app in this case. But I think it would be useful to digitize your notes.

https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/surgical-reading-how-...

I like this method, it reminds me of the classic book How to Read a Book

ssijak6 lat temu

Thanks for the links. And I just received my copy of the "How to Read a Book" :)

zapperdapper6 lat temu

Had the same problem. I just write a blog for myself primarily, with notes on the things I'm working on, code, tools etc. I'm surprised by how often I go back and read my own articles, so I take that as a sign the idea was a success! :)

mikeegg16 lat temu

OJT

ssijak6 lat temu

Care to elaborate? OJT=On the job training?